State of the Roll Address

A man in a gray suit approaches the podium and speaks, "Ladies and Gentleman of the press, please rise for the Player of the Poker Bank Roll"

Meek enters in a dark suit and addresses the press.

"My fellow poker players (and Wayward Searchers), this is a critical time in the life of the Poker Bank Roll. My Poker Bank Roll and I, we have endured recent hardships, bust outs, failed trials of new games, and unprofitable bonus chasings. We have reached a new low point, and are putting together a new plan towards the road to recovery. It is a hard road, not easily travelled. We will reach the land of continued growth, without asking for help from living expenses or other bank rolls, except for those that we bust. I ask for your support in the upcoming elections, that I may continue to play and grow this bank roll, and that we should all prosper. Ask not what your bank roll can do for you, but what you can do for your bankroll. Thank you very much."

Yes it is a hard time recently in the poker world for me. The Roll is down, nearing a thousand, after being up to three grand last year. I recently put a small amount into PokerShare to chase a bonus there, along with a PSO gift. For the $50 deposit, I had a $50 sign up bonus, as well as 9000 PSO points, which have a street value of about $90. PokerShare was recently added by PSO, and they had a shotgun start special to the first 5 players to sign up. I shot for this and missed, but still had a few nice incentives to go with. Until I started playing at PokerShare. For bonus clearing, I've become a $1/$2 limit HE player. My strategy comes mostly from Small Stakes Hold Em. However, with PokerShare, I've hit a large road bump. They are on the TAIN network, and don't have a lot of traffic. Also, it's based in Europe, so their peak times are during the day in the US. At peak, they might hit 3000, with 500 players for EST evenings. Also, most of the players are Aggropeans. Short handed no limit is the game. It's hard to find a limit HE game or a full ring game there. I do like to play NLHE MTTs, so I thought I'd try to find a full ring NL game. These do spring up occasionally. I put the full $50 on a table, and happen to sit down with Falstaff at a table. He and I get in a hand a little bit later with a third player. He hit a flush on the turn against my over pair, but he had odds to go for it with a third loose player staying in the hand. Yes, I did pay off his value bet on the river. It wasn't a big hit to my stack, though and we started chatting about one of his projects. A few hands later, I get QQ, and take the lose player for the ride. There is an A on the flop, and I donk raise the rest of my stack into the pot. It was a bad move. He had AK, I should have thought that half of his playable hands contain an Ace. Before I did it, I commented to Falstaff in another window that I was going to go broke here. At the same time, I've got a similar table open on UB, with all of my UB stack on it. I get QQ there. Three way all in preflop on that table and I'm up against KK and KK. I bust out of UB also.

At that point I take a walk. Busting out can happen, especially when I buy in at a table with my full deposit, so I reload for another $100, to chase the $50 I lost, plus the $150 coming in incentives. If I play even from here on out, I'll be up $100. With $100, I can open two of the $50 tables. While playing, I hit a set of threes and bust a small stack. I comment to PokerWolf in IRC, "I play poker to destack people with sets" He agrees that it's a great feeling. 5 minutes later, I see a flop with 7 3 from the blind, and hit two pairs. I think, how do I get all this guys money into the pot. Obviously he was thinking the same thing, having flopped a set of tens. I destacked myself there, and took another walk. I'm playing bad, but I can be honest about it.

Looking back, I'm probably doing something similar to what I'd read in a recent post (that I don't remember the source - I thought it was EvaCantHang, but no.) I'm playing NLHE as if I'm in an MTT. I'm trying to double up, instead of make money.

That is the State of the Roll. I can be honest about it. Not good, but I think I see the path to improvement. LHE with occasional NLHE MTTs. Maybe I'll play some micro NLHE to get the licks down, but not right now.